Happy International Men's Day, the day to celebrate the accomplishments of great men. I figured this would be a good day to post this article.
It is also National Buy Ammo Day, your reminder to support those companies making ammunition and to keep your ammo cupboard stockpiled.
In doing research about gun companies and the men who started them, I have come across stories of men who, beyond being involved in the gun business, led some very interesting lives.
How many of us have lamented over the last few years about Hollywood's lack of imagination? It seems they keep rehashing the same stories, unable or unwilling to look for new material.
If Hollywood or someone else is willing to read this post they may find the stories of these men's exploits to be fascinating enough to bring to the big screen.
In no particular order:
John Vassos
John Plato Vassocopoulos was born in Sulina Romania on October 23rd, 1898, to parents of Greek origin. When he was young his family moved to Istanbul Turkey, where he spent his formative years.
During WWI he served aboard ships with the Allies as a deck hand. He survived an attack when the Belgian ship he was on was hit by a torpedo.
After the War Vassos emigrated to America settling in Boston where he attended Fenway Art School at night. There he studied and worked with famous artists John Singer Sargent and Joseph Urban. In 1924 he moved to New York and opened his own studio where he designed artwork for many large companies. He designed many of the radios and other equipment for RCA and is considered the "Father of Art Deco design".
With the start of WWII Vassos joined the Army as a Captain, serving in the Engineering Corps, in charge of designing camouflage.
Due to his keen intellect, leadership skills and linguistic abilities (he spoke English, Turkish and Greek) as well as his knowledge of the Mediterranean, he was recruited to work for the newly formed Office of Strategic Services or O.S.S.. The forerunner of the CIA.
He was promoted to Major and sent to Egypt to run a secret spy school outside of Cairo. Vassos would train the spies as well as author and illustrate the manuals. Vassos was promoted to Colonel at the end of the war. For his service, the Grecian Government awarded him the Gold Cross of the Order of the Phoenix, the highest honor given to non-royalty.
After the war he settled in Connecticut where he continued his design work. In 1947/48 he was hired by Remington to design the receiver of the Remington 11-48 shotgun.
The design for the receiver was carried over to the models 58, 870, 1100 and other guns. He also became an avid hunter.
Vassos passed away on December 7, 1985
Arthur Savage
Arthur William Savage was born on May 15th, 1857, in Kingston Jamaica. His father was an agent of the UK government, sent to the West Indies to set up schools for the education of recently freed slaves.
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Sometime during the 1880s Arthur, now married with children, moved down under and traveled across Australia in a covered wagon. He then set up a homestead and a cattle ranch. In short time his cattle ranch became the largest in Australia. After 11 years he sold the ranch and bought a coffee plantation in Jamaica.
After a short stay in Jamaica, Savage moved to Utica New York where he worked for the Utica Belt Line Street Railroad, he also found part time work at the Utica Hammer Magazine Company, a gun factory.
Savage and his son Arthur John began designing guns and in 1887 came up with a novel lever action design with the magazine in the receiver (instead of under the barrel), which allowed the use of pointed bullets. This gun would go on to be the Savage model 99, which had the distinction of having one of the longest production runs of any firearm.
Six years later he was awarded a patent and in 1894 founded Savage Arms and began making firearms.
Around the turn of the century, he helped design a torpedo.
In 1901 Savage moved to Duarte California and tried his hand at growing oranges but failed. In 1905 he sold his remaining interest in Savage Arms and started the Savage Tire Company, during this time he invented and patented the radial tire that we still use today.
In 1917 he started another gun company with his son which failed shortly after.
Savage tried other ventures including oil drilling, gold mining, the manufacture of bricks and pipe. He also managed the San Gabriel Water Company for a time.
In 1938 Savage was diagnosed with cancer and after some painful months committed suicide at the age of 81 on September 22nd, 1938.
Paul Norton Van Hee Jr.
Putting the pieces together for Mr. Van Hee proved very difficult, from what I could gather, Van Hee was born in the Detroit area on December 16th, 1927.
He would often introduce himself as "General Van Hee" and it is rumored that he did indeed retire from the military as a Brigadier General, but I could find no solid evidence of that. Court documents say that he worked for the CIA during and after the Vietnam War and may have been an "advisor" for them in Laos and Cambodia. He owned a company called Norton Private Ltd. in Singapore in which he was supposedly involved in securing and exporting US military hardware back stateside although the company is listed as doing business in "explosives" according to court testimony.
In 1970 he started a company called Norton International Corp in Miami, presumably to do work for the CIA. He also formed a company out of Miami to build pistols.
He had once worked with Eugene Stoner on a full auto version of the VZ52 pistol, but nothing ever came of it.
His company had contracted with a manufacturer in Spain to develop plastic cased ammunition, while at the same time one of his other companies began developing a small pistol, using very little to no steel to fire these projectiles (read that story here). Could this have been a "shadow project" for the CIA?
He was said to always travel in luxury and have plenty of beautiful younger women with him, yet people didn't know where or how he got his money.
Later he "worked" for Cadillac Gage, a military contractor which produced, among other things, armored personnel carriers and in 1976 was tried and convicted of breaking export rules when he illegally shipped some of them to Spain. His defense team included F. Lee Baily and a member of my family.
Van Hee died on February 1st, 1995, at the age of 67
Alexander Sturm
Alexander McCormick Sturm was born into a wealthy Connecticut family on June 23rd, 1923. His father was an author, sculptor and former Yale football star Justin Sturm. His mother, Katherine "Kit" McCormick came from the McCormick family, inventors of the McCormick Reaper. Their investments in harvesting equipment led to partial ownership of International Harvester. They were one of the wealthiest families in America and as such married into other prominent families like the Rockefellers & Roosevelts.
Alex or Sandy as his friends called him was the definition of a renaissance man, driving sports cars, wearing tailored suits and dining at the best restaurants. A "Great Gatsby" type of character.
Before Sturm graduated from Yale he was already a published author and artist. He was also an accomplished polo player.
During WWII Sturm served in the O.S.S. the predecessor to the C.I.A., in Washington D.C.
In was during this time Sturm met his wife to be, Paulina Longworth, the granddaughter of former President Teddy Roosevelt. The two married in 1944 and resided in a house on his family's estate in Westport Connecticut.
After the war Sturm continued to write children's books and the couple had a daughter. In 1948 or early '49 Sturm met Bill Ruger and their conversation turned to guns. Sturm was an avid gun collector and was excited to talk to a real-life gun designer.
It wasn't long before Ruger was showing Sturm his prototypes and asked Sturm to be his partner, putting up the seed money for a new venture. Sturm, Ruger and Company started with just $50,000, borrowed from Sturm's mother-in-law.
Sturm designed the company logo (red eagle), letterhead, fonts and marketing material. The company stationary is said to have looked so "official" people mistook for a government agency.
While Bill Ruger was in Canada on a hunting trip in 1951, Sturm contracted viral hepatitis. He was hospitalized and after a 10-day battle died on November 16th, 1951, he was 28 years old.
After his death Ruger ordered the company logo changed to black, which it remained for 50 years.
Ruger is now the largest gun maker in the United States.
Sid Woodcock
Sidney Herbert Woodcock Jr was born in Spokane Washington on May 29th, 1924.
The following is from the book Combat Master - Sid Woodcock and Detonics by Allen Chinn:
If I told you that here was a person that one of the early 1940s OSS (Office of Strategic Services) operatives and later worked under contract for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), Atomic Energy Commission, Department of Defense, FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), Secret Service and the Department of Justice: trained at Shaolin during World War II, trained at the Kodokan in Japan after World War II, was a Grandmaster of Chin Na, 8th Degree Black Belt in Shinobi, instructor of units from the U.S. Army Special Forces and U.S. Navy Seal Teams, taught Bruce Lee joint locking techniques; an expert in firearms and explosives, and a watch maker you would think I was crazy or a liar. Sid was all of these things and more.
In the early 1970s Sid was working for Explosives Corporation of America, when the company was downsizing. Sid along with some other employees started a company called Energy Sciences Corporation to make some of the specialty explosives that their former employer was ending production of.
A couple of the employees along with Sid Woodcock started the Detonics company to build compact 1911 pistols. Another one of the employees invented Pyrodex, a replacement for black powder. Read more about that story here.
Sid passed away on June 5, 2011.
R.L. Wilson
Robert Lawrence Wilson was born to Presbyterian ministers in St. James Minnesota on June 24th, 1939. He began collecting firearms at the age of 14 and at the age of 22 wrote his first of his 50+ books regarding firearms. Once considered one of the foremost experts on collecting and evaluating firearms, he was involved in one of the greatest scams in the world of gun collecting.
After cheating a millionaire who hired him to build a collection of highly valuable firearms, he then cheated the millionaire's heirs when the bank settling the estate hired Wilson to dispose of the collection, then he swindled the Connecticut State Library out of their collection of Colt firearms, donated by the Colt company some years earlier.
He spent time in prison for his shenanigans and died a loner at the age of 77 on December 10, 2017. Despite all of this, he remains an enigma. The question remaining is this, was his research and writings on the up and up?
Colonel Rex Applegate
Rex Applegate was born on June 21, 1914, in Yoncalla, Oregon. His great grandfather Charles Applegate was one of the blazers of the Oregon Trail and his great, great uncles later created the Applegate trail through Nevada, California and Oregon.
As a young man Applegate was taught how to shoot by his uncle, Gus Peret, who was a famous professional hunter and exhibition shooter. He graduated from the University of Oregon in 1940 with a degree in business and took a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He served with the Military Police.
In 1941 he was developing hand to hand combat techniques and was recruited by "Wild" Bill Donovan to work for the O.S.S. They wanted him to run a school for spies and assassins at a place called "Shangri La", which is now Camp David.
After which Applegate served as the personal bodyguard to President Roosevelt.
After the war, Applegate moved to Mexico, the weather being better for his lung condition, where he became an advisor to the Mexican Government and made an honorary general in the Mexican Army.
It was in Mexico that Applegate formed a company to build and import small arms into Mexico for sale to the public. The guns had to be disassembled in Texas and taken across the border as parts. The list of guns imported and marked Armamex included the Ruger standard pistol, the Whitney Wolverine and The High Standard Sport King pistols. His friend P.O. Ackley assisted with setting up the company.
From 1948-1955 Applegate was the representative for Smith & Wesson, Remington & Peters Ammunition in Mexico.
After leaving Mexico Applegate spent time in Hollywood where he taught John Wayne how to shoot and worked as an advisor for the movie The Alamo. He is also said to be the inspiration for several of the characters in James Bond novels.
In the 1980's Applegate designed some knives for combat, several of which are still produced today. He was inducted into the Cutlery Hall of Fame in 1994.
Over the years Applegate wrote seven books on hand to hand, gun and knife fighting techniques.
Col. Applegate passed away at the age of 84 on July 14, 1998, in San Diego.
Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt (no middle name) was born in Hartford Connecticut on July 19th, 1814. His Father was a businessman in Hartford. His maternal grandfather, John Caldwell was an officer in the Continental Army during the Revolution.
He had three sisters and two brothers. The grim reaper had visited the Colt family often.
His mother died when Sam was 6 years old, his oldest sister died of tuberculosis when she was 19, another died during childhood and the last sister committed suicide. One of his brothers also committed suicide while awaiting his execution for murder.
His two earliest possessions were his grandfather's flintlock pistol and an encyclopedia named The Compendium of Knowledge, the latter of which he acquired when he was indentured to work for a farmer at the age of 11. Colt was mystified by the inventions and accomplishments described in the book and he hoped to someday add his name to the list of inventors.
He had later heard some men talking about a double rifle and how great it would be if someone could invent a repeating rifle. Sam decided right then and there that this pursuit would be his life's work.
At 15 Samuel was building primitive batteries and making homemade fireworks, including underwater explosives. He would hold exhibitions during the 4th of July.
After getting in trouble with his fireworks, Sam was sent to work on a ship and learn the seaman's trade. While on a voyage to Calcutta India, Sam was struck with the idea for an automated revolver after watching the ratchet and pawl mechanism on the ship's windlass. It is important to note that a revolver did exist before this time, but the cylinder had to be manually rotated into position.
He created a wood model of the mechanism, some of those pieces are shown below.
After returning home Sam attempted to build his design in his father's shop, but one of the guns blew apart when fired. Colt needed more money to start his gun venture, so he went on the road as a showman introducing people to new inventions and natural curiosities like nitrous oxide. He called himself "The Celebrated Dr. Colt of New York, Calcutta and London". Colt also performed plays, shows and demonstrations to make money.
He started his first gun company in Patterson New Jersey, the pistols sold well, but the massive debt and lack of control kept the company from surviving.
After that he created several inventions, even working with Samuel Morse (inventor of the telegraph) to create detonators for underwater mines.
He then met with Samuel Walker, a Texas Ranger who wanted Colt to build him a large .44 cal pistol, Walker carried with him the authority to purchase 1000 of said revolvers for the US Government.
Colt had the guns made by Eli Whitney Blake (nephew of the famous Cotton Gin inventor) and with the money he made from the sale, built a new factory in Hartford.
His new company was a massive success, he died one of the richest men in America, worth about $15M (the equivalent of $440 M today). Unfortunately, Colt died before his most iconic guns were created.
Colt passed away from complications with gout on January 10, 1862. He was survived by his wife and son.
Made In Mexico: The Armamex Ruger Story | An Official Journal Of The NRA (americanrifleman.org)
Chinn,A (2012) Combat Master Sid Woodcock and Detonics. Raleigh, NC: Lulu.com
Full text of "DETROIT COURT HEARS TALE OF VIETNAM INTRIGUE, BRIBERY" (archive.org)
True Crime Collector Skulduggery: R.L. Wilson and the “Trade of the Century” (forgottenweapons.com)
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